Why I Love Cold Turkey: The Benefits of Split Decisions

I admit it. I’m a vegan, and I love cold turkey.

Say what???

Let me explain…

When I was in high school, I grew my hair long enough so I could sit on it. What can I say? I was a weird kid.

We might as well drag out the embarrassing high school picture now.

Welcome to 1998, people. Mmmm…tapered mom jeans and nerd glasses.

Click here to see more awkward photos from my youth.

Anyhoo, you might notice that my hair in this high school photo is very long, but it’s not butt length. A few days before this picture was taken, I had a very dramatic experience at the hair salon.

I was 17 and broke (selling shoes at Bakers doesn’t pay much), so I went to the discount hair salon in the strip mall by my house. My goal was to get just a trim (one inch!) before my senior class photo.

I sat down in the chair and began explaining my one inch (one inch!) policy to the stylist who was combing my mile-long hair with her fingers.

“So, how long have you been a vegetarian? A few years?” she asked.

I stared at the woman’s reflection in the mirror for a moment. I was a little dumbfounded because I hadn’t mentioned that I was a vegetarian. And no, I wasn’t wearing some militant “Go veg or die!” shirt.

“Uh…3 years…” I said. “How did you know?”

“Oh, you can tell a lot about a person from their hair,” she replied.

She reached down to grab my hand and put my fingers on my scalp.

“Feel this!” she said excitedly. Then she slowly dragged my fingers down the length of my hair. After about a foot and a half of hair, something strange happened.

I could feel a distinct horizontal line across my hair. Freaky.

The stylist rubbed my fingers over the rough line, then back up a few inches to my soft newer hair, and then back over the rough spot a few times.

How had I not noticed this before?

The rough line in my hair didn’t feel like dried/split ends. It was too deliberate, too high. There were many inches of hair below the line.

The stylist went on to explain that she had learned to tell how healthy a person’s diet was based on his or her hair. She said she’d noticed the same dramatic line in other vegetarians’ hair, but only the ones who quit eating meat “cold turkey.”

Ha! I had to laugh at that turn of phrase.

Are you familiar with the phrase cold turkey? It’s used when you quit doing something immediately rather than gradually.

For example, a woman who finds out she’s pregnant will stop drinking alcohol cold turkey. And a smoker who wants to get healthy might stop smoking cigarettes cold turkey.

This hair stylist had correctly surmised that I had stopped eating meat in an instant.

But that’s how I roll. I’m a big proponent of making split decisions.

Your first instinct or gut reaction about a situation is usually right. Follow it!

It’s about trusting yourself and trusting your body and mind. Your subconscious can pick up on things your conscious mind might not be able to process yet. If you go through a lot of waffling and flip-flopping when making a decision, remember that it’s only your ego trying to confuse you about what you really want.

Be quiet and still. The answer will appear to you out of all the distractions. To me, the “true self” in my subconscious is like a clear bell ringing in a noisy room.

When I know it’s time for me to make a change, I dive right in—no looking back!

I love cold turkey!

The stylist had stopped talking and was looking expectantly at me in the mirror.

“Cut it off,” I rubbed the line in my hair. “Cut it all off.”

The woman smiled, and led me back to the sinks. In the end, I got about a foot of hair cut off…the most I’ve ever had cut off in a single visit.

And I was really happy with my split decision to have a major haircut, just as I was about my split decision to become a vegetarian, and later, a vegan.

By the way, I didn’t mean to freak out any of my veggie readers with my post headline. I can assure you I am a vegan, for reals. That first picture is of a turkey I adopt from Farm Sanctuary every year for Thanksgiving.

Do you believe in making split decisions?

What have you quit cold turkey?